Confronting the production mechanisms of nuclei with deuteron and proton-triggered balance functions
Fuente:
arXiv
Gespeichert in:
| Hauptverfasser: | , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Preprint |
| Veröffentlicht: |
2025
|
| Schlagworte: | |
| Online-Zugang: | |
| Tags: |
Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
|
| _version_ | 1866908574142169088 |
|---|---|
| author | Tripathy, Sushanta Christiansen, Peter |
| author_facet | Tripathy, Sushanta Christiansen, Peter |
| contents | In ultra high-energy collisions, nuclei with very low binding energies are not expected to survive the dense and hot final state environment. The traditional view has therefore been that nuclei form via coalescence after the hot environment has dissipated. However, statistical thermal models, where hadrons are produced from a fireball at thermal equilibrium, can describe the relative abundances of light nuclei in pp and heavy-ion collisions at the LHC equally well. In this paper we investigate if balance functions triggered by protons and deuterons can be used to distinguish between the two production mechanisms. The coalescence model is investigated using PYTHIA, while the statistical thermal model is examined using the Thermal FIST package. We find that for both models the same simple relation between proton and deuteron triggered balance functions is applicable. However, there is a striking difference between the two models when the transverse momentum of trigger particles is varied. This dependence offers a promising observable to discriminate between the two production scenarios that goes beyond nuclei production. Furthermore, we find that deuteron-meson balance functions vanish identically for both models due to baryon number conservation and isospin symmetry. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_03195 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Confronting the production mechanisms of nuclei with deuteron and proton-triggered balance functions Tripathy, Sushanta Christiansen, Peter High Energy Physics - Phenomenology High Energy Physics - Experiment Nuclear Theory In ultra high-energy collisions, nuclei with very low binding energies are not expected to survive the dense and hot final state environment. The traditional view has therefore been that nuclei form via coalescence after the hot environment has dissipated. However, statistical thermal models, where hadrons are produced from a fireball at thermal equilibrium, can describe the relative abundances of light nuclei in pp and heavy-ion collisions at the LHC equally well. In this paper we investigate if balance functions triggered by protons and deuterons can be used to distinguish between the two production mechanisms. The coalescence model is investigated using PYTHIA, while the statistical thermal model is examined using the Thermal FIST package. We find that for both models the same simple relation between proton and deuteron triggered balance functions is applicable. However, there is a striking difference between the two models when the transverse momentum of trigger particles is varied. This dependence offers a promising observable to discriminate between the two production scenarios that goes beyond nuclei production. Furthermore, we find that deuteron-meson balance functions vanish identically for both models due to baryon number conservation and isospin symmetry. |
| title | Confronting the production mechanisms of nuclei with deuteron and proton-triggered balance functions |
| topic | High Energy Physics - Phenomenology High Energy Physics - Experiment Nuclear Theory |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.03195 |